6 Lessons for Life

The finest teacher I’ve ever known was born today. Aaron turns only 6, but I’ve learned more from him in these years than I did in the three decades prior to his arrival. When we found out what he was, I felt drenched by all the world’s rain, but he has brought nothing but sunshine. The best birthday present I could give him is to share some of that light…

One has to be careful with the R-word these days. I am not talking about the trending scientific measurement, the rate of reproduction of the virus, which refers to the average number of people that one infected person might infect. But rather a less politically correct R. In both cases, the less R you have, the better. My birthday boy has quite a high R-rating: he doesn’t talk at all, but he understands some words. He can navigate the stairs of our house, which is no mean feat (the General calls them ‘the North Face’), but he falls over a lot as well. Don’t we all?

What is normal? Normal is yesterday and last week and last month taken together. There is no new normal, there is just whatever normal is now. Two days after Aaron was born, I made the seemingly unreasonable comment to Aimee. “I am still going to play football with the boys every week and drink with my mates”. It sounds superficial, but I think when your reality is rocked and you don’t know what will be, it’s crucial to set the bar high.

Normal is only scary when it’s new.

2. NUTELLA LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME AS SHIT

Two weeks ago, Aimee came downstairs to find Aaron in quite a state. He had found the jar of Nutella, jammed his hands in and stuffed his face unapologetically. He wasn’t wearing a top, so by the time she found him, he was covered in the yummy hazelnut cocoa spread. He was giggling adorably, a magical moment Aimee captured on camera.

A few days later, I came home from work to discover AJ in a similar state. He was topless in his room, coated in what looked like a chocolatey substance. Alas, this body paint didn’t smell quite as sweet. I’ll spare you the lurid details but suffice to say that like many 6-year-old boys, he was full of shit.

When I found him, he looked me in the eyes with what felt like an inappropriate sense of pride. And then he laughed at me. Had I had the presence of mind to take a photo, it would have been identical to Aimee’s classic shot from the Nutella affair.

Sometimes life gives us Nutella, sometimes shit happens. It just depends on how you look at it. Either way, we have to clean up. The world is currently obsessed with washing hands, but we must not forget how important it still is to get them dirty every now and then.

3. FACE THE BRUTAL FACTS

A tactic I learned early from Aaron was to gather all the facts, understand them, accept them, and then plan accordingly. Brutal facts cannot be ignored, they must be embraced. The only time denial is useful is in a bust, otherwise ignoring the scary truth is silly.

Once you know the lay of the new land, you can recalibrate and react appropriately. There is a classic Jewish proverb which says, ‘I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders’. If we measure the weight of the load accurately, all our effort can go into working out how to carry it.

The doctors told me Aaron will progress at a rate 30–40% of ‘normal’ kids. Therefore, although he turns 6 today, he is closer to 2. Self-delusion might have made it easier in the short-term, but we are all forced to face reality eventually. It’s better to be prepared; the cold facts will be too hot to handle if you bury your head in the sand. It is far more powerful to approach adversity with a very different mindset: accept the reality of the situation.

This is not a recipe for hopelessness. We must retain faith that we will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties. But at the same time, we must confront the most brutal facts of the current reality, whatever they might be.

4. THE BEST IS YET TO BE

The opening lines resonate, especially at this time:

The scariest part of having a special needs child is not the present, but the future. When a human is mentally handicapped, the condition gets relatively worse as we move through the ages. A 6-year-old who acts 2 is ok, but a 20-year-old who acts 7 is sad.

What I have realised is that even when you expect the worst, things usually get better. The average age of death from Covid-19 is older than the average age of death. The sadness of this pandemic is that it kills mainly “old people”, but our notion of old age will soon be radically different. I am certain that in my lifetime, it is not going to be that special to live to 100. I believe the first 200-year-old human has probably already been born.

Whether you are 40 or 70, there are a lot of life years still to live. These few weeks of lockdown will be nothing but a speck of time in the greater scheme of things. AJ is the oldest he’s ever been, but he will never be as young as he is today. That’s the paradox of life, so we might as well just enjoy it. You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing. Remember the classic Mark Twain line: ‘Wrinkles merely mark where smiles have been’.

5. LAUGH AT EVERYTHING

Charlie Chaplin nailed it: To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain and play with it.

Aaron loves slapstick comedy. Any exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal life makes him laugh. Throw in some intentional violence or violence by mishap, and you have him in hysterics.

But there is something more to his laughter. Often when I’m deep in thought, or having a dark moment, AJ will laugh, unexpectedly. I can’t tell you how many times Aimee and I will be arguing (about something I’ve done wrong), and we’ll be interrupted by this strange little person laughing at us. It’s almost as if he knows how meaningless most of our worries are.

Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. IN THE BOOK OF LIFE, THE ANSWERS AREN’T IN THE BACK

There is no use worrying about how the story ends, we have to get there regardless. Why were we given a child with special needs? Why is this virus destroying so many lives?

They will write volumes on how humankind reacted to this pandemic. It might be hailed as a masterstroke, a victory of science and social solidarity, or condemned as the biggest over-reaction in history. Either way, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so all we can do is enjoy today. And hope.

We cannot change what has happened, we can only react to the new reality. And that is the key that unlocks hope. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the past together again.

Hope starts in our heads. Scientists have proven that humans cannot experience more than one pain at a time. If you really hurt your thumb and then someone kicks you in the shin, your brain is wired to suffer only one of them. Since the past is history and the future doesn’t yet exist, the only place we truly exist is in the present. Enjoy it.

Happy birthday Aaron. You keep laughing, we will keep learning.

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